We’re coming off of a huge week here at Foremost Media following the World/Australian Superbike weekend at Phillip Island, MX Nationals launch at Wonthaggi on Monday and a range of other projects in between. Plus, to help off-set the associated costs, we’ve been carrying out our share of customer work, too.

As I mentioned in last week’s Deadline, the opening round of the Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) was a great one in terms of competition – kudos to the racers who took part! – and we’re looking forward to seeing what Motorcycling Australian (MA) can do to keep excelling once the standalone events commence.

The fight for victory was fierce at Phillip Island, not just in Superbike but also in Supersport and Supersport 300 as well, so it truly is impressive viewing from the sidelines. That’s a great thing for the sport and, historically, the way it’s usually been.

Image: Keith Muir.

WorldSBK was also spectacular in Australia and I’m really intrigued to see the season progress. My head says Jonathan Rea will have it covered for a third-straight crown, but my heart says Chaz Davies will deliver for Ducati. As for Aussie wildcard Josh Brookes, he had an unrelenting weekend, but 12th in the final affair was some reward for he and ER Motorsports.

Good news for Brookes now is that he has the official WorldSBK test and a full race weekend to his credit, before British Superbike testing begins in Spain this weekend. Yep, he’s already headed off back to Europe and, hopefully, this past weekend helps him get back on track in BSB for another title.

“Everything is new at this stage, so I don’t have any preconceived ideas,” Brookes said of his upcoming test. “I’m going there to ride the bike and find out the good points and what we can work on, get to know the team and listen to what ideas they have for the season and go from there.

“It’s going to be a shakedown test, there is a lot to take in, a lot of new people and everyone builds bikes differently, there will be a lot of things the team do that I will have to learn and take it from there. The goals are to complete a successful test, make myself comfortable on the bike, see what sort of lap times we can produce and find out what changes we can make.

“You couldn’t find a better way to prep for a season really, I’ve already done the two test days at Phillip Island and then the three-day race weekend. If anything, I’m one step ahead of a few of the others that haven’t got back into the racing feel.”

In World Supersport, wildcard Anthony West starred again for a podium place in third and, like Brookes, it was a tough weekend for he and the team. But he pulled through for P3 and gave us a great interview afterwards. Love him or hate him, West sparks interest and we’re definitely not against his approach this late in his career. He simply tells it the way it is.

Source: Supplied.

The young Aussie duo Aiden Wagner and Lachlan Epis also managed to gain top 10 results, which was really nice to see at home, and I reckon they’ll take a huge amount of confidence away from the result. And get behind them all year long, because without them we’d have very little to cheer about at the world championship level in SBK or SSP.

I’m looking forward to what’s to come and, of course, the big one – MotoGP in Qatar – is also drawing ever-closer by the week. Before then though, there’s more WorldSBK and ASBK action on the calendar and we’ll be covering it as closely as ever.

Anyhow, that’s it from me for this week, thanks for stopping by as usual! Make sure you check out all of CycleOnline.com.au’s social networking channels and be sure to Like us on Facebook or Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for even more behind the scenes insights. Just search CycleOnline.